Reflections On The Revolution In France

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Amazon Digital Services LLC - KDP Print US, 2 maj 2019 - 257
When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government, with public force, with the discipline and obedience of armies, with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue, with morality and religion, with solidity and property, with peace and order, with civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things, too; and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men. But liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people, before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made of power, -and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions they have little or no experience, and in situations where those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers. - Taken from "Reflections On The Revolution in France" written by Edmund Burke

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Born in Ireland in 1729, Edmund Burke was an English statesman, author, and orator who is best remembered as a formidable advocate for those who were victims of injustice. He was the son of a Dublin lawyer and had also trained to practice law. In the 1760s, Burke was elected to the House of Commons from the Whig party. Burke spent most of his career in Parliament as a member of the Royal Opposition, who was not afraid of controversy, as shown by his support for the American Revolution and for Irish/Catholic rights. His best-known work is Reflections on the French Revolution (1790). Some other notable works are On Conciliation with the American Colonies (1775) and Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788). Edmund Burke died in 1797.

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